


Noire

by observerswildflowers (therealdocmountfitchett)



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Help, Is this angst, i can't write, idk is this even going anywhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-07-01 04:17:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15766431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therealdocmountfitchett/pseuds/observerswildflowers
Summary: After four years and a lot of change, Angie Martinelli re-enters Peggy's life.





	Noire

**Author's Note:**

> peggy carter DESERVES more content. basically idk why I wrote this or where it's really going, promised myself I wouldn't publish anything until I had at least two chapters written but Ive had loads of trouble birthing chapter 2. however I still want to feel like im doing something so i'm publishing chapter one anyway lol. also this is totally unbeta-d so I apologise for all the typos. ps I forgot how to do html so fingers crossed it worked lmao

**Los Angeles, 1953**  
The California sun had been something to look forward to before she got here.  
New York’s climate, admittedly, left a lot to be desired; rain and mist in summer, and winter deep-freezes that snowed everything to a standstill.  
In Los Angeles it never seemed to stop being beautiful. At first the weather came as an agreeable change after the damp squib of a springtime she’d left behind at Newark Airport. Warmth and blue sky were welcomed by her constitution. She spent her free hours lying out and soaking in it, getting tanned (which Johnny approved of) and freckled (which he didn’t, because it created headaches for the makeup artists on set).  
The sun’s novelty wore off after a while. Strange how she wanted to draw the blinds in the afternoon now and keep it out; its overbrightness intruded on her peace, ubiquitous yellow like sodium light. What Angie wouldn’t give for a thunderstorm. A good downpour would wash away the dust and perk up the parched grass.  
*  
Bolivar Court was populated with people like her. Mostly they were actors and writers (or wanted to be actors and writers, more accurately). Her apartment boasted its own kitchenette, a private bathroom and hot water. There was a little rat problem, but really? It could be worse for downtown LA.  
Angie sat at the table in her kitchenette-stroke-living room. The circle of light under the overhead lamp kept her script, glass, and bottle of peach schnapps illuminated. One thing she’d concede West Coasters did better was air conditioning; in spite of the fact that it was August, the breeze from the rickety fan unit in the corner was cold enough to necessitate second layers.  
She sucked down the slug of schnapps in her glass. Cheap stuff from the liquor store down the street, it tasted like it may have contained as much antifreeze as peach, but at least it barely bit into her pay check. It was a Friday, and some of the girls on set were going out tonight. They’d invited her to go with them; she declined on the basis that she was broke, which was not completely untrue, though the more pressing reason was that she just didn’t want to. It had been a draining week and Angie wasn’t even quite sure why. Sometimes a party was the answer. Tonight it wasn’t; drunken studio executives with eight hands were a prospect that didn’t cheer her up.  
So she sat in her kitchen wearing pyjamas, swathed in a pink cardigan that she’d borrowed from her sister’s closet god knows how long ago and had never given back. It hadn’t needed to be washed yet, and still smelled like Clara’s Chanel Number 5. The record player at the end of the table played Ella Fitzgerald back to her softly. Its crackles were comforting. She’d played Ella Sings Gershwin to death and knew where every small skip was. Psychotic Olive in the apartment below liked to bang on the ceiling with a broomstick handle and yell at her through the floorboards to shut the hell up if she turned the volume any louder, so she contented herself with quiet music, side by side with traffic noise instead of drowning it out.  
Angie poured herself another slug. The window over the sink framed a square of sunset; bloody red and wisps of black cloud over black silhouettes. It might’ve been quite beautiful on a different evening. To its detriment, the back of Bolivar Court overlooked an alley that stunk of garbage and was full of drunks, junkies and (shockingly) uncollected garbage. Just like New York if you didn’t look close enough. The Spanish architecture everywhere was a pretty jarring reminder.  
The pin curls in her hair were holding stiff thanks to the tons of hairspray from hair and makeup this morning, though she’d tried brushing them out and had knotted them up in a loose bun anyway, just to stop them bothering her. Tomorrow was her next scheduled shampoo session. Wash it tonight and the delicate cycle would be disturbed. Sighing, Angie opened her script to the page she’d marked and began reading through the circled lines without actually taking anything in. The picture was called Blue Heat and it started shooting in September. That left a four-week chasm of time off after The Chinatown Incident wrapped next week.  
Johnny was convinced Blue Heat was going to be her big break. At the very least, it was her biggest part yet. Johnny deserved credit where it was due; Los Angeles was his idea, his castle in the air. She’d trusted him. She knew more than enough about show business to know that nine out of ten assholes who promised people like her careers were dumb optimists at best, and dirty goddamn liars at worst. But Angie did her research on Johnny. He seemed legitimate. And he was convincing. And he took a shine to her.  
Angie Martinelli had never been one prone to strokes of good luck. Johnny Kaminski saw a potential that no one had spotted, which seemed too good to be true because if she really did have any special talent then it sure as shit shouldn’t have taken that long to spot it. But he did. And anyway, if she was being honest with herself she’d been in an ugly place and not really making clear decisions at the time.  
So she trusted him and left her family and a moderately successful career in theatre three thousand miles behind her. Either that was how her future biographies began, or ended.  
Johnny was a good agent. It had taken a year but here they were, poised to sign a studio contract. Blue Heat would be her first major role.  
And she couldn’t for the life of her concentrate on learning her lines. 

The nature of life in Los Angeles was strange. Angela Martin was almost a big deal. On one hand, the surreality of going to premieres and seeing herself unnaturally enlarged in the background behind more famous actors, giving interviews for movie magazines and reading her name in print in film reviews, ticked by with her nearly unable to believe it was real, disassociated from feeling it, though it was real. But acting didn’t pay big bucks unless you were Doris Day herself. Every night she came home to a shitty apartment. No one recognised her in the street, knew or even particularly cared who she was in a city full of people who were almost a big deal.  
She closed her script and pushed it aside. Angie stood up. A headache was building behind her temples, and liquor always put her to sleep. It was only eight pm; much of Los Angeles would only just be getting started. She turned out the light, took the needle off the record, and crossed through into the glorified wardrobe she called a bathroom to look for her toothbrush. 

Angie had barely been in bed fifteen minutes before the phone at the end of the hallway rang. It dragged her out of half-sleep unceremoniously. Scowling into her pillow, she rolled over and groaned, hoping someone would get up and answer it quick. New York was three hours ahead so it probably wasn’t her call.  
Someone did get up and answer. She couldn’t hear what was going on, and to be frank didn’t care that much either. She closed her eyes and tried to get back to sleep.  
A few seconds later, there was a knock at her apartment door.  
“Angie? Angie, are you in there? It’s for you”.  
Evidently, Linda next door had taken the call.  
Angie groaned again. Dread flooded her. She lay there, unmoving, for an extended moment before being able to bring herself to shift.  
Shit. So much for that early night.  
She got out of bed and answered the door to Linda bleary-eyed, with the cardigan wrapped around her like an old lady. “Who is it?”  
“I don’t know, some man”.  
Her neighbour shrugged and handed her the receiver.  
“’Lo, Angela speaking”.  
“Angie, it’s me”.  
She furrowed her brows. He sounded urgent. “Joe? Somethin’ wrong?”  
A pause elapsed. At the other end of the line, cars drove by close to wherever her brother was making the call. “Look, I… I’m in trouble. I can’t talk about it right now but I’m on my way to LA ‘cause I really need to speak to you”.  
Her frown deepened. Angie bit her lip. “Joe, you’re scaring me. Where are you?”  
He paused again, as if considering whether or not to say what he said next. “I’m at a gas station in Missouri. If I keep driving I should be there by the morning. Is that alright with you?”  
“Of course it is, I’m always here if you need me. Seriously though, you’re scaring me. Joseph, what’s going on? Are you in some kinda danger?”  
Another car, or maybe a truck, rumbled past next to him. “I’m sorry Angie, I really can’t talk about it now. I’ve gotta go. If I’m not there in the morning, just… uh, just call your fed pal and tell her it’s about a file and the guy who got shot”.  
“Wait, _what?_ The what who-”  
The phone crackled sharply as in Missouri, Joe put the phone back on its receiver. The line cut, leaving a blank tone in place of his voice. 

 

**Brooklyn**  
The seagulls awoke long before anything else did. Outside the open window they cawed, wheeling over the roof and picking at the trash bags on the front steps. Apart from their shrill discussions it was deeply quiet, and the rest of Bay Ridge slept on.  
It wasn’t going to be another rainy day. Last night the heavy showers had lulled Peggy to sleep, drumming on the window, and in their wake the sidewalks shone slick and puddled. For the moment, it was still grey. The sun hadn’t risen all the way yet. She awoke slowly. Seagull screeching worked its way into her nightmares; they were the feverish, fragile kind, right before waking. Peggy came to awareness with the realisation that she was too hot. The sheets were tangled around her limbs as though she’d been fighting with them in her sleep. Sweat clung to her forehead. Kicking off the sheets, she did not open her eyes. They fell in a heap at the foot of the bed. Peggy’s lips tasted like salt and her eyelashes were wet with it. She lay and breathed measuredly through her nostrils for while, inhaling the familiar scent of her own shampoo on the pillow, as the dream faded out. She did not have to check to know that Jim was not here. The mattress was cold, and no weight pulled down his side of the bed.  
He came in late last night and slept on the sofa downstairs, she recalled.  
It was dark in the bedroom except for inches of light at the ends of the curtains. Peggy stretched out an arm and felt around on the nightstand. Her fingers brushed a glass of water, her reading glasses, and then the alarm clock; she brought it close to her face, squinting to read the digits.  
It was 5:47 in the morning. Peggy knew she would not get back to sleep.  
*  
“Beautiful weather we’re having, ma’am”.  
“Yes, it’s lovely this morning, isn’t it?”  
Ricky the security guard smiled and touched the peak of his cap. The disappearance of the rain had taken the cloud with it, too. Nice enough to drive to work with the top down on the convertible. He stepped out of his booth with a Stark Industries sensor in his hand (personally invented by Howard) and passed it over her car like a magic wand, sweeping the trunk and the hood and around the wheels.  
“Go on through, ma’am,” he said, nodding.  
“Thanks, Ricky”.  
Peggy nudged the accelerator and the Eldorado rolled forward. It really did handle beautifully. She and Howard spent hours modifying it, and had grown fond of her convertible; at any rate, they‘d become loath to see scratches or flies on the pretty paintwork (which she kept as sponge-clean as possible). The upholstery still smelled like new car.  
Wind stirred the woodland, the wild edges of which hung over the road; the asphalt cut in a thin vein right to the centre of the forest. Ahead of her, the automated gates trundled apart and she slipped through the gap between, past the sign for CAMP LEHIGH (Military Personnel Only, No Unauthorised Access By Order Of US Military).  
The drive took you all the way to what lay at the middle of the forest. On a morning like this, the loudest noise was her car. You never met anybody else on the one-way track, swallowed by the trees around it; shaggy, overgrown pines and bramble bushes that never got cut because they were no one’s property. In the autumn they bore blackberries the size of small golf balls. Each time she drove by she thought about Georgie, and how much she’d like these woods when she was older. They could come picking blackberries and take them home in an empty biscuit tin. She and Michael used to go blackberrying along the hedges behind their grandmother’s house, which was in the middle of nowhere. The juice stained anything it touched awfully, but Nana forgave them if they brought her enough ripe fruit to make a pie or a tart. Peggy had never taken to baking, unfortunately. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to learn. Then again, perhaps it was.  
She inhaled and smelled Christmas tree. The journey down this road always reminded her of how she pictured the road to Manderley in Rebecca.

The woodland eventually melted away at the edge of the camp complex. Howard was waiting on the trunk of his car when she pulled into the parking lot (an anachronistic thing to come across in the middle of the woods). One of the perks of the position was a large parking space with ‘Assistant Director Carter’ painted on the ground in white letters. He leaned against his trunk in the space beside hers (the back end of a Stark Industries one of a kind) and waved as she approached with the scenery reflected back at her in his sunglasses.  
“Morning, Peg”.  
She rolled her eyes behind her own sunglasses. “You’re here bright and early. That can’t be good”.  
The Eldorado drew to a halt and she twisted the keys so that the thrumming engine stilled. Peggy grabbed her briefcase in one hand and untied the headscarf knot under her chin with the other, pulling it off fluidly. Howard opened the door for her to exit. “It’s about the Playground project, I want to talk about the budget. I’ve been doing some thinking and I think we should extend the plans”.  
She locked her car and they began walking together towards a cluster of concrete munitions bunkers. These days, the Lehigh barracks were devoid of men in uniform. The complex might’ve seemed fairly deserted to an outsider if it weren’t for the parking lot full of vehicles. New Jersey trees rippled like running water against one another, fluttering the stars and stripes on top of the flag pole. Lehigh was nothing but a couple of wooden barracks, arranged in neat lines, a scattering of low-slung ammunition bunkers, and behind the prefab mess hall an assault course no one had used in nearly a decade.  
“Alright, I’m listening. How so?”  
“Well, I know we agreed we weren’t going to go for the extra lab facilities but I did some calculations last night and I actually think it would be better in the long run if we- hey, I thought you said you were quitting”.  
He glared; she was fumbling with a lighter, sparking up the cigarette that had appeared in between her lips.  
“I am quitting, just not today. Do carry on, Howard,” Peggy said crisply.  
“You weasel, I’ve been cutting down because I thought we were in this together”.  
She half-sighed, half dragged on her Lucky Strike. “Sorry for being a poor friend, I’ll admit to not being diligent. Here, have one if you want. Then we’ve both failed and the slate is clean”.  
Peggy offered her cigarette case. Looking pained, Howard considered. His moustache was twitching like a small animal in distress.  
“Oh, what the hell. Health kicks never last anyway”.  
He took one and placed it between his lips, and they stopped on the dust track leading to the concrete bunkers as she lit his cigarette with the same handsome silver lighter with which she’d lit her own (a thirtieth birthday gift).  
One of the bunker doors opened and shut quickly, and a young man in a suit stepped out. He carried a briefcase as carefully as you’d carry a child, moving towards his car. As he passed by he nodded reverently at the both of them.  
“Morning Mr Stark; Assistant Director, ma’am”.  
They nodded in unison. Peggy gave him a brief smile. “Good morning, Agent Hill”.  
Howard sucked on his cigarette, relishing, and turned back to her once Hill was out of earshot. They continued walking. “Anyway, as I was saying I was doing some calculations last night and I think the lab facilities to house the stuff for Project Racquet would be better off there than us waiting another two years for the permission to come through for the Montana site. It just doesn’t make financial sense-”  
She smiled, wry. “Howard Stark thinking sensibly? I’m shocked”.  
Howard returned her smile and bowed. “What can I say? This organisation is my baby, and having a baby has made me grow up”.  
“Oh, I wouldn’t quite go that far”.  
They’d come to a door. She took a slip that looked a little like a business card and a little like a ticket from her pocket, outstretched it, and the slot at the door of Bunker 2 swallowed it up. Almost immediately, Bunker 2 spat her slip back again and a light at the corner of the door flickered from red to green. Peggy retrieved the slip and edged the door open with her shoulder.  
The sunlight and the quiet vanished in one go once it shut behind them. SHIELD base one, codename Basement, lived up to its name.  
Peggy glanced at her watch. “Look, I would love to hear more about the Playground ideas you have, I’m afraid but I’ve got to dash off. I didn’t realise the time, I’m expecting a call from the West Berlin office in six minutes. If you’re coming to the meeting later on, we’ll discuss it properly with everyone present”.  
Howard nodded. “Right. Sure thing”.  
“See you later”.  
“See you round, Peg”.  
Lamps dangling from the ceiling cast a yellow glow over all; they were same filament bulbs that had been installed during the war years. The catwalk which Bunker 2’s entrance opened onto overlooked the bullpen on level minus one, a hundred desks scurrying with activity like inside of an anthill. Peggy made her way down the stairs. She walked quickly. Basement, by virtue of its nature, was an echo chamber; the sound of voices and footsteps and telephones ringing reverberated all the way to the high ceiling. Her heels on the linoleum sliced clean through the buzz. Agents milling around greeted her as she passed, but she didn’t stop to make conversation with anyone. She kept her head down, finishing her cigarette with unnecessary concentration. The West Berlin call was important and mustn’t be delayed.  
Peggy reached her office through one of the doors off the bullpen.  
“Good morning, ma’am”.  
“Morning, Lucy. How’s the knee?”  
Lucy, Peggy’s secretary, sat filing her shell-pink nails at her desk in the anteroom separating the Assistant Director’s office from everything else. A placard let visitors know that she was ‘Lucille Moran’.  
“Better today, thank you. I think the exercises are working”.  
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Peggy kindly. Behind Lucy’s desk was a coat stand, on which she hung her coat, and a glass-paned door lettered with her full title: ‘Assistant Director M.E. Carter, S.H.I.E.L.D’.  
*  
The phone rang again.  
She was in the middle of filling out a risk assessment for a recon mission, scoping a terrorist collective in eastern Russia who had their sights (allegedly) on some technology that could pose an even greater danger if it were to end up in the wrong hands. That was the thing nobody told you about being in charge; it was a lot of filing paperwork so that other people could go and do things, and not an awful lot of doing things yourself.  
Peggy’s office was her private domain. At her desk, she worked with her shirt sleeves rolled up past her elbows and her reading glasses slipping down towards the end of her nose. She blamed Basement’s poor lighting for accelerating the deterioration of her eyesight; the place grew more decrepit with every month that passed, and soon enough they’d have to begin the process of moving operations to the replacement base once building work was finished.  
The Berlin had call opened the floodgates to a busy morning. She chainsmoked, purposely ignoring the whiskey decanter on top of the filing cabinet (like trying to forget an itch she couldn’t reach). White cigarette butts stained with red lipstick built up in a flower-shape in the ashtray.  
Peggy rushed the end of her sentence and set down her pen before picking up the phone.  
“Lucy?”  
All calls came through her secretary, but this wasn’t a scheduled call.  
“Sorry to disturb you, ma’am. I’ve got a... I’ve got an Angela Martinelli on the line for you. I know she hasn’t got an appointment but she says it’s urgent”.  
Peggy frowned. “Angela Martinelli?”  
“Yes, that’s the name she gave. Shall I tell her to call back later? I can tell her you’re busy if you-“  
“No”. She pushed her glasses onto her head, rubbing her eyelids with her free hand. “No, don’t do that. Just, uh... just put her through, Lucy”.  
“Sure can do, ma’am”.  
A series of nondescript clicks and crackles filled her ear as the line was connected. She’d given Angie this number a long time ago, and told her to use it if she ever needed in case of emergency. Peggy tugged at her earring as she waited.  
“Peggy?”  
The connection quality had dropped somewhat. Of course it would have if Angie was calling long-distance from LA (at least that’s where she was the last Peggy heard of her; she’d sneaked into the Roxy Palace on her afternoon off a few weeks ago to see her in a picture called Ferry to Santa Luisa. Angie’s face suited the silver screen).  
Peggy’s heart beat heavily. “Angie, are you alright?”  
For a moment that felt longer than it was, no reply came. “Angie? Are you there?”  
“Yeah, sorry. I’m here. I’m... I’m sorry to call you like this”.  
There was something odd in her voice that Peggy couldn’t place. “It’s alright, honestly,” she responded, a little too quick. "Is something the matter?”  
Wherever Angie was calling from, it had to be a public place. Vague, echoey noise swirled around her. “I’m not in trouble or anything. I... I just got a call this morning. From my mother. My brother’s dead”.  
Peggy drew breath sharply. She paused, and couldn’t find anything good or comforting to reply to that in her head. “Oh my god... Angie, I’m so, so sorry”.  
“Thank you,” she said flatly, and laughed without mirth. “God, I’m sorry about this. I’m dropping stuff on you out of the blue and...”  
She tailed off. Peggy waited for her to speak again instead of staving off the silence with stupid chatter, but it was a while before she did so. Angie spoke shakily, as though she trod on thin ice. “But that’s not the reason I called. I mean, it is but it’s not”. She sighed. “This is going to sound really weird. Joe, when it... it was a car accident. Last night”.  
Peggy’s hand moved automatically towards her mouth. “Angie, I...”  
“I’m calling you because I don’t think it was an accident. I might be wrong and I don’t want to sound crazy, it’s just that he called me last night and told me he was in some kinda trouble but he wouldn’t say what, and that he was on his way to LA. He said that if he wasn’t here in the morning that I should call you”. Angie reeled all this off quickly, trying not to lose her nerve.  
She stopped tugging her earring. Her tone changed, and she was Assistant Director Carter. “Call me? He said that, specifically?”  
“Yeah. He said that I should get in contact with you because it was about, uh... well, it sounded like he said it was about a file and a guy who got shot?”  
Leaning forward, Peggy gripped the phone tightly. “What? Is that exactly what he said?”  
“Maybe not verbatim, but yeah, that’s pretty much what I think he said. I don’t know, he put the phone down right after. Look Peg, there’s a lot goin’ on and maybe I’m not thinking straight or making sense, and I don’t even know if they’re gonna investigate the crash as suspicious or anything... I don’t know. I don’t know”. She faltered for a moment again. “Can I meet you?”  
“Of course. Are you nearby?”  
“No, I’m at a payphone in LAX. I gotta stop over in Colorado, but I should be back tomorrow”.  
“Well, call me as soon as you’ve landed here and we’ll discuss details”.  
“Thank you, English. I know you’re busy, and it really means a lot to me”.  
Peggy, in spite of herself, felt an out-of-place warmth and she almost wanted to smile a second. Nostalgia ached as much as it was good.  
“It’s nothing. Really. I know you’d do the same for me”.  
Their conversation was interrupted by a series of mechanical pips much closer to her eardrum that Angie.  
“Ugh, I’m out of quarters. Peggy, I’m gonna have to go”.  
“Alright, call me as soon as you’re back in New York”.  
“I will. I’m landing at LaGuardia, I’ll probably be there by noon cause I’m getting the earliest flight I can from Denver tomorrow morning”. The line crunched like someone was rustling newspaper against the receiver; Angie’s voice emerged just in time for Peggy to catch the tail end of her next sentence. “-nk you again, Peg”.  
“It’s nothing. You take care. And Angie? I’m-”  
The call reached its limit and cut out.  
Slowly, Peggy took the telephone from against her ear and nestled it back in place on the hook.

**Author's Note:**

> so that was chapter uno. I have a ""plot"" (quotation marks) in mind but I don't know how we're going to get there or if it makes sense lmao. it could be a while before I update this again bc I have a busy couple of months coming up and also the creative part of my brain is a hot mess. if u did make it this far, thanks for reading & hope u enjoyed :)


End file.
